Tag: noise

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Strange Sounds

In an apartment building you get to hear sounds not heard anywhere else in the world.

Lucky us.

Sometimes it sounds like someone is building an airport in their rooms. I have no idea what they are doing. I don’t want to know.

Many years ago, several times a week, a loud metallic banging echoed through our apartments. A few boisterous clangs and it would stop. This went on for over a year. No one could figure out where it was coming from, or what it was.

Eventually, the superintendent, with the aid of several office workers found the culprit.

Culprits.

A married couple were banging on the heating registers with metal pipes. No, not to clear air out of them. This is not the 1930’s. And they were doing it when it was 90 degrees out.

WHY?

God only knows. For fun I guess.

Life is very strange.

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In Praise of Farts

You can count on one thing when you get old; your farts will not be contained.

They will be heard, and heard loudly. They will smell, and smell badly. They love to have an audience, are sneaky, and can guarantee you will have plenty of space in Aisle 13 at Walmart.

I praise farts because they feel so good. Why some of our less desirable bodily functions feel so good I do not know, but they do. And why humans have to be so noisy and smelly is a mystery, but some animals can out do us on both counts. All animals react the same way to encountering a fart as humans; pleasure for the farter, disgust from the rest of us.

My cat Sam doesn’t fart. He fluffs. Cats are dignified about such matters.

Farts are like having a trumpet at your rear end. They are smelly music. They make us laugh and cry.

So I will end this shitty year with a signature fart, it is befitting for all the crap we’ve endured in 2020.

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Just Sit

I usually get up at 4 a.m. so I can do my creative projects and some physical exercise before going to work.  But every once in a while, I just sit.

That’s right.  Just sit.

Hands wrapped around a big mug of tea, the cat in my lap, I will stay put until it is time to get ready for work.  That is 3 hours of sit.  I am amazed at how fast that goes by!

And how necessary it is.

How wonderful to disengage.  Sometimes it is inspiring.  Sometimes I get new ideas.  Most of the time I just rest.  Three hours of not expecting anything, planning anything, trying to figure stuff out, worrying, ruminating, processing information.  Rushing.

Nice also to have 3 hours where I am silent.  Seldom do I speak a word, not even to cat.  Likewise, it is good not to listen either.  The next 8 to 10 hours at work are filled with non-stop chatter, where I must communicate clearly and listen intently.

In the early morning hours, not much activity in the world outside my doors.  Birds may be singing to the sunrise, or rain pattering on my window.  Sometimes the howl of wind.  No cars, voices, vehicles, sirens, telephones, people and the like – yet.

Most weekends and holidays in summer I spend hours of sit outside.  Next door is a splendid park, complete with thundering waterfall.  In these surroundings if I sit still long enough, nature gets curious about or bored with me and reveals herself.  Creatures appear and check me out or resume their daily business.  Nature is calm and soothing yet brimming with life and activity.  A still-busyness. Work is noisy, demanding and always, always busy.  No still there.

So now as I just sit and let the world carry on without me, my cat stretches full length down to my ankles and yawns.  The clock is telling me the hour has come.  Already ten minutes past the hour.  Think I’ll just sit a bit more . . .

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Adjoining Walls

New neighbours moving in, muffled sounds coming through my living room wall.  The adjoining wall.  That unusually thin partition that both separates and joins me to my neighbours.  The common wall.  Possibly only a dry wall.

I’ve learned a few things about common walls.  Never put the head of your bed against one.  Either you’ll keep your neighbour awake with your snoring, or they will keep you awake with their lovemaking (or vice versa if you are fortunate).

Don’t put your stereo, TV, computer, gaming device or similar repetitive noise maker (a relative) against one.  You’d be amazed how far sound travels and how loud it is next door, above and below you.  I am startled by how many people who insist on doing this don’t know what headphones are.  It’d solve most of the problems, save the talkative relative.

There are hundreds of things to complain about whenever you share a dwelling with 400 other people, but noise tops the list.  It’s all those things happening on the other side of those adjoining walls.  Of course!

But right now I am the offender.  I have a very bad cold.  Very bad.  I spend the wee hours of the night with a dry hacking cough. I curl up on the sofa in the living room to spare my neighbours sleep, but at 2 a.m. probably everyone within 5 floors of me has heard I am sick.

I am currently blessed to be nestled between two very quiet neighbours.  But I dream of living somewhere where the adjoining walls are with nature.  The only form of pleasant annoyance would be birds, crickets and frogs singing, rain pattering, wind whooshing, maybe waves lapping.  Or perhaps, the sound of nothing at all, like I experienced in the desert.  And I won’t disturb anyone.

However, as I get older, and a bit deafer, I tend to get louder and my neighbours quieter, strange that.

Think I’ll go practice my flute now.

Don’t worry – it’s only for 25 minutes.

In the dining room.

It’s 2 p.m.

Mostly it’ll be a few toots, mixed with coughs.

All of you are at work.

Far from adjoining walls.